Justin Fashanu was born on February 19th 1961. He was an English footballer who played for a variety of clubs during his professional career between 1978 and 1997. He was the first professional footballer to be openly gay as well as the first black footballer to receive a £1million transfer fee when he transferred to Nottingham Forest from Norwich City in 1981. However he had little success following this, although he would continue to play in top flight football until 1994.
Fashanu was the son of a Guyanese nurse and a Nigerian barrister. When he was 6, Fashanu and his brother John were sent to a Barnardo’s home following his parents divorce, and they were fostered in Norfolk. He excelled as a boxer in his youth and at one point considered pursuing a professional boxing career instead of his footballing career.
Fashanu would begin his footballing career as an apprentice with Norwich City, turning professional towards the end of 1978 and making his league debut on 13 January 1979 against West Bromwich Albion. In 1980, he won the BBC Goal of the Season award for a goal against Liverpool, and he scored 40 goals across 103 appearances for Norwich. He would also be capped six times for England at an under-21 level, although he never succeeded in being called up for the senior side. He scored 19 league goals in the 1980-81 season, however Norwich City were still relegated. However, he would go on to sign for Nottingham Forest in August 1981, becoming the first £1million black footballer.
His career would begin to falter as his professional relationship with manager Brian Clough started to fall apart. Clough was seemingly disturbed by the rumours of Fashanu’s visits to gay nightclubs and bars, and Clough would go on to ban him from training with the side after discovering about his sexuality, causing Fashanu’s goals and confidence to dry up as he failed to fit in.
In 1990 Fashanu agreed to an exclusive with The Sun tabloid to come out as gay, with the headline “£1m Football Star: I AM GAY” being run on 22 October 1990. In the exclusive, he claimed to have had an affair with a married Conservative MP, whom he first met in a London gay bar.
He would agree to front Loud’n’proud in 1992, a new national radio series aimed at young lesbians and gay men however BBC Radio Five would turn down the pilot, with it later being picked up by BBC Radio 1 but with a female presenter
Fashanu was also the subject at an early internet meme in 1996 when the BBC opened their poll for the Sports Personality of the Year award to email votes for the first time, with an online campaign being organised among students in an attempt to enable him to win the title, but his votes were excluded by the shows production team.
In 1997, he would move to Maryland, USA to coach football, officially retiring from the professional game.
In March of 1998, a 17 year old claimed to police that after a night of drinking, Fashanu sexually assaulted him. In the state of Maryland, homosexual acts were still illegal and the youth had said that the act was not consensual. After being questioned by the police, they turned up to his apartment in Ellicott City with a warrant for his arrest on charges of second-degree sexual assault, first-degree assault, and second-degree assault, however Fashanu had already fled to England, fearing that he would not get a fair trial due to his sexuality.
His body was found on May 3rd, having hung himself in a deserted garage he had broken into in Shoreditch, London. In his suicide note he wrote "I realised that I had already been presumed guilty. I do not want to give any more embarrassment to my friends and family." His death was ruled a suicide by a coroner.
Fashanu was listed at number 99 in the Top 500 Lesbian and Gay Heroes in The Pink Paper, and he still remains to this day the only openly gay male footballer in Britain.
In March 2009 a football team, named The Justin Fashanu All-stars was named at a special event supported by the FA in Brighton. The team, named in his honour, was created by the Justin Campaign, which is a campaign against homophobia in football and promotes the inclusion of openly gay players.
In loving memory of Justin Fashanu, 19 February 1961 – 2 May 1998
By Jake Livingstone
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